Some Pink-Plaques!
There are about six plaques currently in existence that are of queer interest. None of them are pink in reality, but then who wants reality!
- Aubrey Beardsley 1872-1898
- Edward Carpenter 1844-1929
- Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1969
- Eric Gill 1882-1940
- Ivor Novello 1893-1951
- Terence Rattigan 1911-1977
- Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie)
- Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf
- (More)
There is a plaque at 31 Buckingham Road, Brighton, where Victorian illustrator Beardsley was born.
A complex character, he apparently desired affairs with both sexes and was rumoured to have fathered the child his sister Mabel miscarried in 1892.
The following year Beardsley met Oscar Wilde and illustrated his play Salome. His distinctive drawing style became associated with Wilde, and after Wilde's imprisonment for sexual offences with a male prostitute, work proved hard to get.
It eventually lead to his dismissal as art editor of the literary journal The Yellow Book.
A blue plaque at 45 Brunswick Square, Hove, commemorates where Edward Carpenter was born. As an adult his political writings made him a key figure in British socialism but he also wrote on Homogenic Love.
After sandal making and communes, Carpenter settled down in Sheffield with lover George Merrill. He published a collection of homoerotic poetry, and apparently Merrill inspired EM Forster to write his gay love story Maurice.
Carpenter also helped set up the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, studying unheard of things like women's sexuality and homosexuality!
One of 13 children, Ivy was born in London and brought up a vegetarian by her father, a successful doctor. The family owned property in Hove and soon settled at 20 The Drive, which is now marked by a blue plaque.
In 1918 Ivy met writer and antiques specialist Margaret Jourdain, and a romantic friendship blossomed. They settled in London and Ivy carved herself a career as a writer, creating novels that feature some rather feminine men, and some independent women involved in strong friendships!
She would be slightly alarmed to find herself here, but honest Ivy, we mean no offence.
For more info about Ivy check out the Ivy Compton-Burnett home page.
There is a commemorative plaque just to the right of the front door at 31 Hamilton Road, Brighton, where Eric Gill was born. He married Ethel Moore in 1904 and moved to nearby Ditchling.
The son of a local curate, Gill co-founded the Christian craft society The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic. A fine artist and stone carver, Gill carved the inscription on Oscar Wilde's tomb in Paris.
As well as being fond of erotic imagery Gill was sexually inquisitive, and his diaries record his adventures, including same sex physical experience. Oh yes. Read them if you doubt me, that's where I read it!
David Ivor Davies to his mum, he became a household name in 1914 with his popular composition Keep The Home Fires Burning. A fine soprano and songwriter, Prime Minister Winston Churchill once joked that he had found him musical in bed!
Novello the actor was hailed as the new Valentino, and in 1917 met his lover, the actor Bobbie Andrews. A plaque at the Lanes Hotel, 70-72 Marine Parade, Brighton, celebrates Novello staying there, writing his 1935 successful show Glamorous Nights.
Regency Brighton inspired his 1945 hit Perchance To Dream, though who knows where he got the idea for his last show Gay's The Word!
At 79 Marine Parade, the corner of Bedford Street, there's a blue plaque on Bedford House. It celebrates the playwright Terence Rattigan, who bought the property in 1961.
He is probably best remembered for writing The Browning Version, as well as the play that became the film The Prince and the Showgirl, and the film script for Graham Greene's Brighton Rock.
One time lover of the Tory MP 'Chips' Channon, Rattigan's work often dealt with difficult relationships. He continued to write after World War II, despite being seen as rather old-fashioned, and funded Joe Orton's first play Entertaining Mr Sloane in 1964.
No plaques here, but the infamous pair made several trips to the Brighton area, indeed Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest in nearby Worthing.
Oscar's favourite hotel was apparently The Royal Albion, 35 Old Steine, Brighton. On one occasion while staying there, the unlucky pair crashed their horse-drawn carriage into the railings by Regency Square on Hove sea front, Wilde telling the papers it was an accident of no importance!
Wilde left the country after his trial and imprisonment, while Douglas married and had a son. The marriage didn't work out and in 1925 he moved with his mum to 35 Fourth Avenue, Hove, before moving again in 1935 to Flat 1, St Anne's Court, Nizell's Avenue.
Again no plaques, but our passionate friends stayed in Brighton and Hove at various times. Virginia spent several summers as a child at 9 St Aubyns in Hove, and moved as an adult to nearby Lewes and eventually Rodmell, with husband Leonard.
Vita on the other hand took up refuge at her mum's place, 39 - 40A Sussex Square in Brighton, during the scandal of her affair with Violet Trefusis in 1919.
Incidentally it was at Brighton train station that Vita picked up a paper and discovered her Violet was engaged to be married!
There are of course loads more sites of interest to any of you who've read this far, and this is of course an advert for the booklet listing many of them, Painting It Pink!
Painting It Pink! [Homo Made Books, Brighton 1996 ISBN: 095287010x] is now available from: OUT!Brighton, Public House Bookshop, Waterstones. In Scotland it's in stock at West & Wilde in Edinburgh; and in the USA it's available from Lamba Rising, Dupont Circle, Washing DC.
Comments, nit-picking or messages of love: A.Leflohic@bton.ac.uk